I performed a couple of nights ago as part of a showing with Friends With Deficits (here’s their webpage and Facebook group!), and it was really rad. I tried two pieces off the new EP without music to see how they’d go.

They went okay.

I performed Our First Date, Our Last Date and 21st Century Vampires.

There’s a preliminary moment that I tend to incorporate into the performance before I start talking, and it’s a kind of “clearing my mind” gesture, and I’m afraid it comes across as “getting into character” and that’s just a bit silly – undermining everything I stand for (… or something).

I also paused a lot more than I would have liked, which resulted in an extra outcry of “WHAT THE FUCK!!?”, which may have come across as a little too intense for an opening gambit.

And finally, I forgot the punchline to 21st Century Vampires (“We embrace it as long as there’s a possibility of living longer and keeping our looks, and that, my friends, is bullshit in anyone’s books.”) and so I just… talked. This just moved the ending a little bit later, but it was for no reason and I really wish I hit that on the head.

But it’s okay. It was just a showing, of two pieces I had never performed live, without music to guide me. Overall, I was quite pleased. So the title of “Self-Loathing & Mixed Reviews” is quite misleading, as I had only good reviews to my face, and I love my own butt.